


Marbles, 1972

by kayeblaise



Series: SVT Immortals AU [5]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Gen, Team as Family, none of them are human, not necessary to read other parts to read this, s. coups accidentally sets off a chain of events that affects the whole household
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-26 19:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayeblaise/pseuds/kayeblaise
Summary: “We lost him for a bit, there, Seungcheol.  And I couldn’t get him back.”In which accidents have consequences and consequences affect the whole household.





	1. In the Library

**Author's Note:**

> *end notes for new folks*

S. Coups doubled over, dropping the books in his arms with a thud. 

He stayed curled into himself as acid fear dripped down his throat.  This couldn’t be happening.  Not now.   

“Seungcheol?”  Joshua’s voice was kind even when filled with concern.  His hand touched lightly at his back.

A flash of anger and fear jumped in his heart and he lashed out blindly.  The back of his hand connected with something solid and Joshua cried out.  S. Coups forgot the ache deep in his bones when he turned and saw Joshua twisted to the side.  The surprise was still frozen on his face.  His hand covered his cheek.

He could barely breathe past his horror enough to say, “I am so sorry.”

The moment stayed frozen with Joshua’s chest rising and falling intensely.  Then his eyes went dark blue. 

Cold dread poured down S. Coup’s spine and he swallowed the taste of bile in his throat.

“Oh, Joshua. . .” 

Joshua straightened up, his hands falling to his sides.  His eyes were a midnight sky wrapped inside a marble.  Though there were no pupils or irises to speak of, S. Coups knew by the recoiling of his heart in his chest that the angel was looking at him.

In the next moment Jeonghan arrived, his hand grabbing onto the doorframe when he came into sight. There was genuine alarm that seemed unnatural to his features. 

_Don’t look him in the eyes._

Jeonghan moved into the room, keeping himself at an angle where S. Coups could still see him.  He didn’t speak aloud but his message as he addressed Joshua linked the three of them:  _I come from the time of the old gods.  There's no threat to you here.  
_

He saw no sign of change in the demeanor of the force that had replaced Joshua.  The being in the room with them did not use language. 

The walls were groaning faintly.  It sounded like the whole house was shifting thoughtfully on its foundation.  It was unclear whether that was what drew Wonwoo to the room, but he arrived with Mingyu a step behind him, craning to make sense of the scene they’d walked into.  Wonwoo’s survey of the room was almost instantaneous, and ended with him pulling Mingyu backward a stumbling step. 

S. Coups tried to wave him further back, but Wonwoo stayed put.

The being with the marble eyes swiveled its head in his direction.

 _Joshua_ , Jeonghan began again. He stepped up closer. S. Coups caught the resigned pain in his expression. _I won’t allow it._

It terrified S. Coups that he didn’t know what Jeonghan was threatening to do.

Apparently, the angel knew.  In the next moment, the room was a hurricane.  Another stab of pain shot through S. Coups so unexpected and harsh that he let out an audible cry.  It was swallowed in the agitated forces that swept through the room.  The cacophony of sound became deafening.  Picture frames banged against the walls. Objects rattled as they started to slide off of their shelves and shatter.  S. Coups could feel the vibration in his bones that were already twisting.

Half delirious, he fixated on Jeonghan standing with his arms out before him:  his palms facing Joshua, his face set.  He felt the sudden urge to shout a warning, though he didn’t know to whom or for what.

With an ominous groan, one of the bookshelves ripped from the brackets that secured it to the wall.    Wonwoo stumbled like he’d been pushed, and the shelves crashed onto the floor at the spot where he had stood.  Woozi appeared, then, seeming surprised by his own good timing. The angel turned in his direction.

“Don’t!” the sharp sound was Jeonghan.  It was almost a shock to hear him so loud, and S. Coups realized the only reason the ceiling was still clinging to the room was because Jeonghan was forcing it to stay.  He was inching closer to Joshua, his expression drawn and tense, and his hands seemed blue from how wide he was stretching his fingers.

S. Coups was startled by Wonwoo reaching his side. When Wonwoo pulled him to lean against his leg for support, it was his first realization that he was no longer standing.

There was a crash, and S. Coups knew that it was the sound of Woozi being thrown into a wall.

The room was too loud.  His eyes were stinging.  Wonwoo was leaning down and yelling something to him.  He tried to focus on it.  He couldn’t tell if he was imagining things melting off the walls.  Joshua was glowing at the eye of the storm.

Then, without warning, there was a rush of silence. 

For a brief moment the room was held in equilibrium.

Wonwoo swore and disappeared from his side.

Joshua arched as if he’d been stabbed in the back.  The light seemed to get sucked back into his eyes and he deflated, his frame seeming smaller now as he blinked eyes that were again a warm brown.  He caught sight of S. Coups first.  He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully as if he wondered what S. Coups was doing kneeling on the floor.  Then he collapsed.

Jeonghan was close enough to catch him but was only able to slow his descent to the floor.

S. Coups looked up from the scene on the floor to the others who had gathered in the room. His attention went straight to Wonwoo. His hands were on Mingyu’s face, his shoulders tense.  Craning to see, S. Coups realized that blood was dripping from Mingyu’s nose.

“What happened?”

“I stopped him,” Mingyu explained dizzily, like he didn’t understand it himself.  His speech was slurred as drops of blood touched over his lips.

S. Coups took an unsteady step back to his feet, but Wonwoo’s sharp gaze stopped him in his tracks.

“He shouldn’t have had to,” he snapped accusingly, “that could have killed him.”

He couldn’t speak. How had Mingyu been capable of that at all?

Woozi appeared out of a shimmer next to one of the bookshelves that was still standing.  “Yes, Coups should have tried to tackle him instead,” he muttered with sarcasm, rolling his shoulder with a wince, “That would be a great match.  Average werewolf versus a descendant of angels.”

“Mingyu could have died,” Wonwoo emphasized.

“But he didn’t.  Can’t say the result would have been the same for any of us.”

“Will you please stop fighting,” Jeonghan petitioned wearily, rubbing his temple with one hand.

But Wonwoo didn’t let it go: “I warned you all years ago that you had no clue what Joshua was capable of.  Just because he was calm does not mean he was stable.”

S. Coups shrunk but it wasn’t small enough under Wonwoo’s condemnation. He could feel Jeonghan’s presence almost petting at the back of his head, but it didn’t change the fact that Wonwoo was right.

“I’m sorry—”

Wonwoo was already moving to maneuver Mingyu out of the room. 

“—I really am.”

Mingyu tried to return a sheepish look of apology or regret but with blood streaking his face it was anything but reassuring.

When they had disappeared through the doorway, S. Coups let his eyes slide over to Woozi.  The fae was standing there with folded arms and shrugged under his pleading eyes.  “Oh, you want me to try to fix that?”

He didn’t say anything, but his request was sitting clear enough in his eyes that Woozi sighed. “Great, I’ll try to convince the good witch that Josh hulking out wasn’t your fault or whatever. I’m fine, by the way.”

“Thank you,” he said lamely as the other vanished.  

He turned back to where Jeonghan was holding onto Joshua.  Jeonghan had started to complain softly about how much of a worry the other was but Joshua was too far gone to hear him.  His eyes were open, but he wasn’t what could fairly be described as conscious.

Pacing over, he dropped himself down to the floor beside the two.  He wasn’t there more than a moment before Jeonghan reached out and grabbed a handful of his shirt sleeve and pulled him in. 

S. Coups dropped his forehead against the other’s shoulder gratefully.

 _You didn’t do this_. Jeonghan’s voice touched gently.

“They’re all just hurt,” he reasoned.

“And they’re all safe.”

S. Coups raised his head from Jeonghan’s shoulder so he could look at Joshua properly. His expression was almost humorously calm but he couldn't find it funny. Through his closeness to Jeonghan he could feel the desperate affection with which the other was also looking at the other, but also how tired he seemed.

He tried to be understanding.  “I guess they all know now.”

The way Jeonghan’s next breath ran over his body gathered his thoughts into a tight bundle and he confessed, “We lost him for a bit, there, Seungcheol.  And I couldn’t get him back.”

He opened his mouth to find a response but it caught and tripped out of his throat as a painful gasp.

He folded into himself, and a moment later when he opened his eyes he realized his hand was grasping onto Jeonghan’s shoulder, his knuckles white. 

“Now?” the other prompted.

“Yes.”

“But it’s early.”

“I know.”

Jeonghan shook his shoulder until he met his eyes.  _I can’t help you._

By the time S. Coups realized what Jeonghan was saying, anxiety had sealed off his throat.  The tension in his bones was tightening.  The walls felt close together.  Arching.  Dark. 

“You can’t go anywhere,” Jeonghan insisted, reading his mind.

“I’ll just go into the woods.”  It came out breathless.

“Not now when they town has grown.  I know you don’t want to take that risk.  You have to do it here.”

Uncharacteristic desperation painted S. Coups voice, “I can’t do it here—”

“It will be fine,” Jeonghan insisted, putting his hand to the side of S. Coups face.  He sounded certain.

It had been so long since S. Coups had had to do this alone, never mind in the house—in the _library_ of all places.  The terror of it settled like a twisted pile of metal in is stomach.  Yet the room was already half destroyed.  Trying to sound equally convinced that everything would be fine, S. Coups, answered, “Lock the door.  I don’t want any of them coming in here.  If Hoshi even _looks_ curious I want Jun to use the power of prayer to vanish him to Australia.”

Jeonghan nodded.  He started to shift in preparation to stand but S. Coups grabbed him back.

“Put on the stereo.”

He didn’t normally have to read emotions from Jeonghan’s face, but the other was in a strange silence with him and he couldn’t understand what his expression meant. 

“I will,” Jeonghan finished. He went to maneuver to stand, and Joshua’s hand snapped onto his arm. 

Exchanging looks of surprise with S. Coups, Jeonghan wondered, “Josh?”

He fought to pull himself out of Jeonghan’s grip but Jeonghan threw his arms around him.

“Joshua, settle dow—.”

In the end it was not the words that stopped Joshua.  His body gave out.

Jeonghan gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him toward himself until he was sitting with his back braced against him.

 _Calm down_ , he hummed, letting the words float within the three of them.  
  
S.Coups couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering although he was far from cold. The painful tingling of his nerves had paralyzed him, but he watched the calm of Jeonghan turning Joshua’s erratic pattern of energy into waves.

As soon as he seemed calm, though, Joshua pulled forward again.  Jeonghan once more tried to hold him back but he didn't seem as wild as before.  Jeonghan strangely let go, and Joshua slid over close to S. Coups and sat down beside him, close enough that S. Coups knew he could feel his heavy exhales hitting his shirt.

“I can help,” he insisted fervently.

“Joshua,” Jeonghan sighed, “he’s changing.”

“I can. . .” he trailed off.  Only then did he seem to notice the room.

S. Coups could feel Joshua slipping, his focus fading with his voice. 

Then there was the movement of Jeonghan stepping over and pulling Joshua up.

“How did it happen?” Joshua said quietly, curiously, looking at the toppled bookshelf.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jeonghan said.

“But. . .”

“Don’t look at it.  Come with me.”

“I could fix it.”

Jeonghan looked back over his shoulder at him, and S. Coups couldn’t give him the reassurance he was looking for.

He waited for the door to shut.  Waited for the sound of the lock clicking in place.  He couldn’t wait to be sure that Jeonghan had listened to him about the music though.  He finally let the levy break and the sound of his scream curled into the broad space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a detour from The Witch at the Well because this insisted on being finished and I figured it might as well get posted. Half told story-style I don't know if this is going anywhere.
> 
> For any folks new to the show and want the reference page for who is what: http://kayeblaise.tumblr.com/theimmortals


	2. The Next Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An afternoon and night has passed. S. Coups wakes up still in the library.

“Hey.” Hoshi’s tone was sad and inviting.  His expression that came slowly into focus matched the sentiment.

S. Coups blinked a few more times before the blurred world sharpened into focus. Hoshi was crouched a few feet away—owl-like and expectant.

He raised himself until he was sitting upright and felt every bone in his back crack.   Under one hand he felt the knots of the worn area rug dig into his palm, but he had to look at his other hand to understand why he was feeling paper.  The remains of what had once been a book—a dictionary or encyclopedia by the looks of it—were strewn across the floor.

He closed his eyes against the truths the rest of the room would give and almost dared to pray the damage was minimal.  The skin of his knuckles felt tight, like the skin was split open.  He focused on that instead of praying.  The last thing he wanted to do was disturb Joshua.

“Are you okay?”

Hoshi was mercifully unassuming.  He hadn’t moved an inch as he waited for S. Coups to adjust.

“How bad is it?”  He refused to take stock of the room.  The corners of his vision were dark with how closely he was watching for Hoshi’s reaction to tell him what he couldn’t face himself.

“Pretty bad,” Hoshi admitted.  He gave what attempted to be an encouraging smile, but the enthusiasm was dulled with sympathy that kept his eyes from disappearing into crescents as they usually did.  It made sense that they’d sent Hoshi.  He was the only one he couldn’t possibly hurt.

He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, shooting a glance out of the corner of his eyes and seeing a beaver dam of splintered wood and paper. “Oh man, Hosh.  What is Wonwoo going to do?”

“He’s outside, actually.  He wants to know if he can come in.”

He wondered why Wonwoo was the one waiting to see him.  It was not who he'd expected.  He chewed on his lip, finding the metallic taste of blood then nodded. 

When Hoshi disappeared, S. Coups tried to convert the shame that was eating at him into something less pathetic.  He'd seen how hard the others had tried to tame their demons and he cringed at the idea of being found sitting in the destruction that proved he was just as dangerous as he’d always been.  Having Jeonghan walk him through transformations all these years had become a crutch.  What was the point if he couldn't control himself? He wondered if Wonwoo was the only one willing to see him or if he was the only one able to, and it frightened him either way.  Whatever the fallout from yesterday had been, he was hesitant to face it in the light of a new day.

The door clicked open.  The far end of the rug bunched under the door, so Wonwoo had to slide into the room. He stood there for a minute, taking in the unrecognizable fragments of what had once been the library.

He knew that the room’s current state tore a wound through Wonwoo he wasn’t sure would heal. “I am really sorry about all this.”  His words had barely enough strength to make their way across the room. 

“Books become outdated," Wonwoo dismissed. "How are you feeling?” The question didn’t hold the same warmth that Hoshi’s had, but Wonwoo came across the room after he asked it, and he sat down opposite of him on the floor.

He hadn’t really taken stock of himself yet.  The thought brought his gaze to his knuckles and he saw that they were split and bleeding as he’d thought.  Beyond the general ache that lingered in every muscle, his foot was pulsing.  He pulled it in toward his body and gripped it in his hands, too afraid to know yet if it was from a cut, a splinter, or a nail.

Wonwoo noticed the action but instead nodded his head at the book whose torn pages were scattered around them.  “That dictionary didn’t even have the word telephone in it.”

Out of desperation, a laugh brushed from him and he winced.

“Does it hurt a lot?” Wonwoo’s voice was not exactly sympathetic, but it was understanding in its own way.

“Can’t feel it,” he half-lied, sobered by the pain and the questions buzzing at the back of his head. “How’s Mingyu?”

Wonwoo’s mouth moved toward that smile that wasn’t a smile:  the sardonic humor was not directed at him, though.  “It took a lot out of him to do what he did in here.” It seemed that Wonwoo might have wanted him to stew in his worry, then regretted the decision, because he added in the end, “He’s resting.”

He was almost afraid to ask, “What about the others?”

Wonwoo gestured toward his foot, and S. Coups wordlessly granted him the permission to take a look, though it took a lot to pull away his hands.

As Wonwoo prodded at his injury, it occurred to him that the other hadn’t really looked him in the eyes yet. 

Wonwoo's words were mumbled, “You’re going to probably need tetanus shots.  Last round’s over ten years old by now.  If it was one of the shelving nails that went through your foot it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

He nodded, afraid to open his mouth to answer in case he let out a yelp. 

Somehow Wonwoo noticed, and he finally met his gaze.  He studied him for a long moment, then said, “I’m sorry this happens to you.”

The words weren’t profound, but he couldn’t process them fully, because he’d never thought before that he needed to hear them.  He did, though.  “I should be able to handle it by now.”

“We tried everything back then, Coups.  Sometimes there isn’t a cure.”

It didn’t matter.  The others had tried. He could still see the look that had been frozen on Joshua’s face.

“I hit him,” he confessed.  He recognized that he was trying to condemn himself and wasn’t sure why he needed Wonwoo to know it was his fault.  Maybe he just wanted to take the blame away from Joshua.  He hadn't liked the implication of bringing up a cure.  Or the way Wonwoo had spoken yesterday.  "What happened to Josh happened because I hit him."

“You couldn’t have known that would happen.”

“I did, though.”

Wonwoo took a few moments to understand what he was being told.  His low words conveyed the difficulty they had become accustomed to over the past century. “Has this happened to him before?”  His gaze was searching, and it was a comfort to see the concern there.

It was hard to admit, “A couple of times in the beginning.  Then a few times since when he's caught off guard.”

He was afraid of what Wonwoo’s reaction might be.  He and Jeonghan had worked so hard to keep it private.

“Is he okay once it's over?” 

He was surprised by the response but didn’t want to show it.  “Okay enough.  But he doesn’t remember that this happens to him, Wonwoo.  He blacks out.  You can't blame him.”

Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrowed, and S. Coups knew better than to interrupt him when he was thinking like that.

“Were you planning on telling him?”

“Only if you plan on telling Mingyu why he was able to stop him.”

The counter-question silenced both of them, but Wonwoo’s question had been floated almost thoughtlessly, the gears of his mind still turning.

“Coups—”

The way his name clipped out of Wonwoo made his heart jump in fear before he even finished.

“—he doesn’t remember St. Mark’s much, does he?”

His throat dry at the power of the question, he rasped, “Not well.”

He wanted to ask Wonwoo what he thought that might mean, but the conversation would take a long while, and he was starting to realize that he’d missed far too much since yesterday afternoon and that was why Wonwoo wouldn't look him in the eye.

“What happened yesterday?”

A tell-tale weight settled over Wonwoo’s shoulders when he said, “A lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm double (triple?) updating this story tonight. We're moving out of chronological order: leaping forward in time to when S. Coups wakes, then falling back to see what was happening while he was out of commission. 
> 
> Eventually we'll meet back up to this moment and move forward from there. 
> 
> I don't know what happened but somehow 4 chapters for this one suddenly existed where they hadn't before. Marbles it is!


	3. In the Kitchen

_The afternoon prior. . ._

 

Wonwoo dropped Mingyu into one of the kitchen chairs and went directly to the counter to pull a paper towel off of the roll.  He was waiting expectantly for Hoshi to arrive when Jun entered suddenly into the room.

“What’s going on?”

“Don’t come in,” Wonwoo warned half-distractedly.

“Why—” Jun caught sight of Mingyu and stepped back automatically.

A line of the blood smeared under Mingyu’s nose had rolled down his throat, touching the collar of his shirt. 

Wonwoo continued over to the table and stuffed the paper towel into Mingyu’s hands, but he let his gaze flick over to Jun.  The vampire looked uncertain.  He shuffled between his feet. 

“I’m good,” he concluded

Wonwoo crossed in front of Jun on his way to pick up the flashlight from the hook near the doorway.  He let his hand brush at his wrist to get his attention and asked bluntly, “How long has it been?”

“Less than a week.”

He nodded, hitting the flashlight against his hand a few times. “Come help me, then.” He continued back to Mingyu at the chair.  The younger had pulled the paper towels away from his nose but Wonwoo pushed his hands back up.  “Let it clot,” he protested, “How are you feeling?”

“Don’t even like this shirt,” Mingyu answered half deliriously.

“Your head, Mingyu.”

“What happened?” Jun interrupted.  He kept to a safe distance, his arms folded.

“I take it you felt the house shaking.”

“Yes, which is why I’m asking you what happened.”

Wonwoo threw a quick look in his direction, as if the words had had more bite than intended. Then he clicked on the flashlight and swung it across Mingyu’s eyes.

Mingyu complained faintly about the light, his voice thick from pinching his nose.

“Tylenol.”  Wonwoo gestured across the room.

Jun went searching at the counter, happy for the distance.  He was sweating and trying to ignore his pulse at his ears.  He expected he’d get answers eventually.  That thought and the press of his nails into his palm kept him focused. 

His hand paused halfway to the cabinet as he caught the addition of a quick heartbeat to the room.  He looked toward the window and knew that Woozi was over there even though he was invisible.  He tried to level his gaze at where he thought the other might be and jerked his head as an invitation for him to come over.

A few moments later, an invisible Woozi stepped on his foot.

He grimaced and fought to hide his reaction.  He guessed Woozi would be amused.  Reaching out to open the cabinet again, he was interrupted by the salt spilling across the counter-top.   

“The second shelf, I think,” came Wonwoo’s half-distracted voice.

“Yeah,” he called back, watching the salt get drawn through with lines.  He wiped his clammy hands against his pant legs as he tried to decipher what Woozi was writing.   A crude stick figure took shape.  Only when a halo was added did he realize it was Joshua.  It wasn’t a good sign.  He waited for the new image to be formed once the old was swiped away.  Letters were hesitantly etched into the salt. _MG stopped him._

Dread crept along Jun’s back at the thought of what exactly that meant.  He tried to figure out where to aim his expression so that Woozi would pick up on his apprehension and elaborate.

They were interrupted by the stereo suddenly blasting from the other room.  The sound sent a ripple of shock through each of them.

“What are they doing?” Jun asked with surprise over the faded thrum of bass, though he wasn’t certain who was responsible.

The bitterness in Wonwoo’s tone as he said, “I swear they don’t know,” suggested he knew exactly who the culprit was.  Whatever other thoughts he might have added were left unspoken.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.” 

Mingyu was leaning forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees.  He was sucking his breath in slowly and each exhale was shaky.

Wonwoo first shared a pointed look with Jun, and then he patted Mingyu on the back as he slid by toward the storeroom, “Ginger should help.  I’ll be right back.”

. . .

Mingyu’s whole world was tilting and swishing and the singular thought in his head was finding his way to the trash can.  The impression of shapes in his vision held a shimmer of white but he couldn’t really see.  His hearing deadened when he rose shakily to his feet. 

“Woah.” He could guess Jun’s face:  his mouth stuck in that o of surprise.

Mingyu couldn’t think.  His body was a chill of cold sweat and he shuffled his feet forward.  He lost feeling in his legs.  Jun caught him, and in his temporary blindness, his hand connected with Jun’s arm.

The images popped like camera bulbs.  First the knife.  Then the gaping neck.  Then Jun, teeth bared and eyes wild.

He snapped his hand away, but the sound that escaped him was a gasp and it was too late to pretend it hadn’t happened.  It took a few long moments for his eyes to refocus out of the tunnel of fog that had crept into his vision.  The first thing he registered was Jun staring at him with horror.  His eyes scrolled rapidly over his face. “What did you see?”

“Nothing.”  He swallowed through the thrumming rebellion of his stomach.

Jun’s hands gripped tighter to his sleeves but it was the wild darkness in his eyes that kept Mingyu frozen.  That, and the hypnotic edge of his voice,” _“What did you see?”_

He answered in a whisper, though he hadn’t meant to, _“the murder.”_ The words were drawn from him beyond his control.

Suddenly, Woozi was standing there. Mingyu couldn’t remember if he’d known that Woozi was in the room.  “Come on,” the shorter said, pulling at Jun’s elbow but Jun was still yearning forward. 

“ _Now._ ”  In the end, Woozi had to drag him from the room, a feat that would have been impossible if Jun hadn’t, in some manner, allowed it.

The spell of dizziness registered halfway through and Mingyu dropped back down into the chair.  The music was thumping against his head.  Everything was fuzzy and he poured all of his focus into not passing out.

Wonwoo’s voice hit him in the middle of a sentence, “—happen?”

He was fixated on the floor trying to stop everything from spinning. 

“Mingyu, are you alright?”

He was trying to center himself and stop the throbbing that was moving from the knot in his shoulder into his brain.  He barely managed, “I saw what he did.”

“Sorry?”

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it but he just saw the scene in photographic negative again—the gaping emptiness of the dead man’s eyes.  And within the chill that has broken his whole body into a cold sweat Mingyu realized that Wonwoo didn’t know.  He swallowed a couple of times in quick succession.

“You saw something,” Wonwoo guessed.

“Forget it,” he gasped out.  Wonwoo must not have been in the room.

Wonwoo’s voice was much nearer now and he figured he was probably kneeling in front of him though he couldn’t really see anymore.  There was just the static that flooded his eyes and pressed at his ears, making his voice sound far off and muffled, “ _If you saw something I need to know.”_

“I think I’m dying,” he said, as if the idea didn’t disturb him much.  It was the last thing he remembered.  Then darkness.


	4. In the Hall

“I’m fine.” 

They seemed to be the only words Jun remembered how to say.  They stuck like a record scratching over and over as they tumbled out of him on exhales and inhales that were so close together it was hard to tell which were which.  He passed back and forth with a feral energy, his turns sudden and his head low.

“I don’t think you are,” Woozi responded.

“What do you know?”  The words snapped into the air.

He wasn’t sure it was safe to tell Jun his pupils had expanded like a threat:  a combination of the blood exposure and the stress, (and, if he was guessing, fear over what Mingyu had seen).  Anger from Jun he had dealt with before, it had developed in the place of the praying.  What was strange had been the tone Jun had let overcome his voice in the kitchen. Jun did not pull on his darker power easily and he especially didn’t use it on them.

Jun caught him looking and reacted to some imagined judgment he must have projected onto his expression.  “I’m fine. I’m in control—” but there was a crack in his voice as he insisted on it.  

Before Woozi could say anything in return, Jeonghan came flying down the stairs.

Woozi caught him as he rushed up to them and whispered quickly at his ear about what had happened.  Jeonghan patted his arm to acknowledge what he’d said and to confirm he was good to move in. 

Seeing him there, Jun started to babble, “I just slipped up.  I’m going to talk to Mingyu.  I’m going to explain.”

Jeonghan managed to sandwich Jun’s hands in his own, trying to stem the flow of words spilling out of him.  “Of course,” he insisted, “you don’t have to do anything right now, though.  Right, Woozi?”

“Yeah,” Woozi agreed lamely.  The ease with which Jeonghan was bringing Jun back down was almost insulting.  He glanced up and saw Joshua sitting on the top step, his head resting against the banister.  He seemed very much present and exhausted.

“He should know.  I need to explain it to him.”

“Jun, you don’t need to do that, okay? Not now.  I---”

  _I’ll be right there._

Woozi blinked, unsure if he was meant to hear that or not.  It didn’t seem to be directed toward him.

“I didn’t mean to do it.  I don’t know—"

“Jun,” Jeonghan interrupted and there was an edge in his tone that he caught and adjusted before he said, “You need to take a break, and I need to go check on Mingyu, okay?”

Jun seemed confused by Jeonghan’s demand, but he nodded.  Using Jun’s confusion to fuel his own, Woozi looked over Jeonghan, dogged by the feeling that something was off with him. While he tried to figure it out, Jun retreated down the hall in the direction of his room.  Woozi wasn’t sure if he should follow or not.  Jun wasn’t exactly back to his old self, yet.  He was surprised Jeonghan had sent him off already.  He must have known he needed more than what he'd said.

Nevertheless, ignorant of Woozi's thoughts, Jeonghan was dragging his hand through his hair and a sigh was hissing through his teeth. “Hoshi!”

They waited for the familiar popping sound of his arrival.  The clock ticked on the wall over the thump of the distant music.  It continued for too many breaths.

“Where is that music coming from!” Jeonghan snapped.

Woozi tried to share his quiet alarm with someone, but Jun was gone, and Joshua was still resting his head on the banister and didn’t seem in the frame of mind to notice. 

With hesitation, Woozi explained, “Didn’t you put it on?”

Jeonghan bristled and then quickly deflated, the truth of the words apparently grounding him.  With more desperation than before, he called, “Hoshi!”

Woozi was fairly sure he caught the words mumbled under his breath, _"I know.  I know."  
_

They all heard the snap.  It took longer to spot Hoshi peering from around the cabinet.  His eyes darted conspicuously to Joshua before he asked, “Yes?”

“Tell Wonwoo I’ll check later.  He’ll be fine—,” he waved his hand vaguely and said louder like he couldn’t hear himself, “Do whatever he wants you to. I don’t care.”

Hoshi hesitated and shared a look of uncertainty with Woozi before he vanished.

Woozi figured he should say something or ask Jeonghan what he wanted him to do.  He realized that even between the two of them, that still left either Jun or Joshua alone when they probably shouldn’t be. Before he decided, Jeonghan started moving.  He bumped into Woozi as he went like he’d misjudged the distance.  He threw a quick, “I’m going out,” on his way by.

"Jeonghan." It was Joshua who called after him with unfamiliar defeat, while Woozi barely managed,

“Where?”

Jeonghan didn’t answer.

Woozi looked after him with indecision and then turned back to Joshua. He didn’t know what direction to go first.  The music reached him in his indecision and he realized its purpose.  S. Coups had changed, then.  He was pretty private about his transformations, but they were all aware that Jeonghan was the one who helped him through it.  Not this time, though.  And Joshua must have trailed after Jeonghan when he first took off down the stairs.  Jeonghan must have been helping him if he was already back to his feet after what he'd been through.  He remembered Jeonghan holding out his hand and talking Joshua through it. He didn't know where Jeonghan was going now, but he understood why he'd left.

Deciding to pick up where Jeonghan had left off, he started to trudge up the staircase with every intention of herding Joshua back toward his room, but Joshua didn’t react to his gestures or the small, “come on,” he uttered as he moved into his space.  He fixed Woozi with a look that shrouded any exhaustion he should still have been feeling and asked, “Did something happen earlier?  Jeonghan won’t tell me.”

The clock ticked in the space left by his lack of a response, and Joshua read what he needed from his unreleased inhale and the aversion of his eyes.

He nodded into that understanding.  “Did I do something?”

“Listen, you should probably be resting.”

“I’m not tired, thanks.”

Joshua didn’t lie, and he was not angry, but Woozi would be damned if there wasn’t something a little defiant in his eyes. 

“Okay.”

“Hoshi was scared of me just now.”

“Look, does it tell you enough that I’m not sure what I should or shouldn’t be saying?”

Joshua scooted over to block him when it looked like he was going to continue up the stairs.  “Woozi,” he waited until he got eye contact established, like he was trying to show that he was present and stable, “I need to know what’s happening with me.”

Woozi looked over the railing to the bottom floor, it sounded like the music had dimmed.  Someone must have turned it down. There was no sign of anyone yet, but that was no guarantee that they wouldn’t appear. 

“Alright.  But not here.”

 The last way he expected Joshua to look was relieved. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triple update on this story complete! More to come. I sleep now, lol.


	5. At the apple tree.

Jeonghan folded himself into the spattering of sunlight that dropped through the branches of the apple tree and felt the world spin.  The light splayed over his skin and warmed his eyelids but the lethargic gray tone that swished through him persisted.

He let himself miss the old days.  The ones no one was alive to remember but him.  The swaying of a boat in the middle of a lake.  The sun.  The strange quiet of a chorus of insects and frogs and otherwise.  Thoughts that hummed in your mind only when invited.  A brief interlude of company.

In the present, all of their worries were handed to him, unwittingly or not. Even the barriers that Wonwoo set around the house-the dozens of plants and protections-did little to dampen the connection between their outline and his.  He couldn’t hold the precarious pile of worries together.  Not after what he’d done to stop the house from flying apart.

If he let himself, he could feel the wild bite of Seungcheol’s mind twisted out of his control.  As it was, he was extracting himself from Jun’s anxious fear which jockeyed for control with the anger Jun pretended not to feel festering inside of him again.  And then there was Joshua.  His nerve endings felt raw like a burn from the furnace of cold fire he’d held onto to keep Joshua in one piece.  He couldn’t take more of it.  Not Mingyu’s pain or Wonwoo’s concern or Woozi’s hesitation.   

They couldn’t hold the weight of his worries the way he held theirs. 

He reached out and his fingers brushed the barely exposed bark from a root that was half swallowed by the ground.

This tree he had planted.  Some time ago.  And it was still young.  It was not yet tired and bent like so many of the others. He imagined pouring everything out into the roots of the tree:  letting the gray tones sink into the earth.

Their thoughts whispered to a stop like the water being cut off from a tap.  

He felt thin and empty.  Almost lighter than air.

A shadow brushed over him and he bent an arm behind his head to lift his sight.  A figure in dark clothes stood at his feet. 

Jeonghan frowned as he recognized him, a dread tickling at his heart, but then he let the feeling pass.  “Are they having you make house calls for fun now or should I be worried?” 

His humor was hindered by the earnestness of Dino’s eyes.  His fingers played with the hat in his hands.   The reaper was leaning forward for the answer he was desperate to hear.  “It’s today, right?”

It took a moment for Jeonghan to process what he might mean.  He pushed up onto his elbows.  “You know I don’t see time the way you do.” 

Dino exhaled through his teeth and crouched down.  “The library,” he elaborated, “they find the notebook today.  If not today than tomorrow.  Or soon.”

Jeonghan supposed he knew what Dino meant.  Meticulous notes were a trademark of Wonwoo’s. Yet the notebooks stayed lined up on the shelf, taking up their space and gathering dust, mostly.  At least one of them must have held the record of Dino’s existence, from a time when Dino was constant enough to not be forgotten.  He regarded the younger with a sympathy he had probably been spared since the time before immortality.

“If there's a notebook that’s got anything to say about you, they’ll only forget about you as soon as that notebook is out of sight again. Death obscures itself.”

The expression on Dino’s face was undefined. 

He cracked open his senses enough to understand it and it nearly knocked him over.  He weakly pushed the feeling away and pulled his feet in until he was sitting upright.  He made sure that Dino could see the sincerity in his eyes when he said, “I’m not trying to be cruel.”

“I’ve seen it happen already.  It’s going to be found.”

“Not every moment is fixed.  You know that.”

There’s a new look on Dino’s face.  This was every bit the ferryman of death, not the boy who had lived and grown and passed from existence like so many trees.  And he said, “I hope you’re right,” as a cloud slid by the sun. The light dimmed and brightened only momentarily, but Jeonghan had to shiver it away. 

He didn’t have anything left to offer today.  He lay back onto the grass and patted the ground beside him. “Come sit with me.  If you’re not busy.”

“I probably shouldn’t.”

He was already settled back down with his face to the sky.

He felt the passing of shadow as Dino lay in the spattering of shade. Although the other had come calling on him for answers, there was no demand in him now.

“I hope it works out the way you want it to,” Jeonghan said, studying the shapes that the sunlight played on his eyelids. 

“I hope it works out for you, too,” Dino said, like he understood why he was out here alone.

Jeonghan tangled a hand into the grass, reaching for the roots. “They’re crushing me,” he admitted, because Dino would leave, and when he did, he would forget having told him.  It was a truth painful in its saying.

He was surprised when Dino responded, “I think you try to hold too much.  They’re not going to get any stronger if you keep holding all the weight.”  

He contemplated the feeling of his own breath rising and falling.  “Who taught you to be so wise?”

“You did.”

It gave him heavy pause.  And in that pause, Dino revealed the rest of what he’d come to say.

“You would all remember me if I wanted you to.”

Jeonghan hummed an affirmation before he asked, “Would we?”

“Yes.  I’m just afraid that it might be better if I stay out of the way.  It’s what I wanted when I asked you to burn that notebook.”

“You did?” Jeonghan wondered, because he couldn’t recall the conversation.  He was happy he’d decided not to do it.

“Yes.  You know that he was hanging around death just to see me.  It wasn’t right.”

“You’ll find that Wonwoo has a mind of his own.  He likes to make his own decisions.”

“He thinks he had a son.”

“He did, I suppose. He had you.” 

“I want you to burn it.”

He exhaled so heavily he could almost feel himself sink deeper into the ground. “I can’t do that, kiddo.”

“Please.”

He grabbed the top of the other’s hand and squeezed it, because right then he couldn’t muster the mental equivalent.  Right then he was ready to let the steady warmth of the sun set him into the dirt. “I can’t do it," he confirmed, "But if you’ll stick around a bit I could use the company.”

“Do you think you’re okay?”

“I will be.” Even as he answered, sinking down into peace, he realized it was strange that Dino would ask him that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They have minds of their own, I swear.


	6. The Longest Night

It was a cooler night than it had been in some time, but the air inside the house was stale.  Woozi didn’t dare open the windows or leave the storm door open on a night like this.  Although the floors were sticky with humidity, he let the heaviness settle.  It wouldn’t be wise to leave any vulnerable points in the fortress their house had become—no need to tempt anything that might wish to try the defenses. Not on a night like this.

At least things were quieter now.  The sounds from the library had all but ceased.  He knew it would be wrong to assume that the wolf had settled for the night, but there was no need for music.

If anyone else was awake there was no sign of it when he made his rounds through the empty halls.  At each crooked picture on the wall, he stopped to nudge the frame back into place, stepping back to judge the alignment.  The walls had been shaken and there’d been no time to straighten the house into its old order.

The damage control he and Wonwoo had done since the afternoon had put Band-Aids over open wounds but had accomplished little else.

Everything in the kitchen was just as it had been left like an eerie museum of the dominoes that had fallen in the house since Joshua’s reckoning.  He didn’t bother to turn on the light while he cleaned, lest it disturb the rare stillness that had risen in the dark.  He brushed the spilled salt into the trash.  Threw the crumpled, bloodied paper towels away.  Put the chairs back into place.  Returned the flashlight to the hook by the door.  Everything in its place in the quiet. 

When he had finished in the back of the house, he made his way toward the front.  He knew which floorboards to avoid and which ones could be pressed only with a light step.  He wasn’t always aware in moments like this whether he was invisible or not.  It didn’t matter so much when there was no one else around. 

At the front door he made a point to pull aside the curtain and peer into the yard.  Past the drooping of flowers and out across the lawn there was nothing in sight.  He waited and almost hoped before he sighed, dropped the curtain, and slid the bolt into place across the door.

That was that, then.  Jeonghan wasn’t coming home tonight.

If he had planned to, he would have arrived already; Woozi was sure of that.  He would have arrived when Wonwoo found Mingyu sitting in the bathtub with all of his clothes on letting the water pound over his head.  Wonwoo had tried valiantly to convince him to stop pressing his hands so desperately into his skull but he couldn’t do anything to help the driving headache that had put him there.  Or he would have arrived when Woozi finished telling Joshua what they knew of his condition and he had sat there in silence for what felt like hours.  Woozi had stayed as long as he could, but he didn’t know what to say. 

No, if he hadn’t arrived yet, one thing was clear:  Jeonghan wasn’t coming.

Still turning this reality over in his mind, his loop around the house came to a pause down the hall to Jun’s door.  He turned around and almost walked away but again came to a stop.  This physical debate occurred several times before he committed himself to approaching, drawn by the door that had been left ajar.  Jun wouldn’t trust himself that much after an incident like the one he’d had today.  They were a haunted house, in almost every sense of the word, and while Woozi wasn’t afraid of Jun, he knew Jun still scared himself enough to hide behind closed doors.

Everything in Jun’s room from the wallpaper to the floor to the posts of the bed had the same aura in the darkness.  Even the blanket-covered form on the bed had no more aura than the furniture.  The mirror reflected only the darkness of the room.  But Jun was not alone.  Wonwoo’s hand rested on Jun’s arm with as much forgetfulness as his head resting on the bed.  He was splayed half-sitting on the floor like he’d had no intention of falling asleep there. 

Whether intentional or not, at least neither of them were alone tonight.  Woozi didn’t envy the difficulties that the morning would bring to them.  They would have relationships to mend, while he just had paintings to straighten on the walls. 

He wondered at the conversation they might have had.  How they had untangled the mess enough to be able to sleep.  He hoped that Jun had at least explained what he had feared Mingyu seeing in his past.  Woozi knew enough about Jun to understand why it upset him.  He might have felt the same if it had happened to him, although he doubted it would set him off as severely.  No, that was definitely a Jun thing.  And it was also a Jun thing that the only person he could whisper those secrets to in the dead of night was Wonwoo.  And with all the quiet patience in the world Wonwoo would listen and understand.  It was one truth of the household that had survived what a day they’d had.

When Woozi left, he did so as quietly as he’d arrived.  He knew better than to approach Mingyu’s door.  He was more vulnerable to the stirring of energy and memory when he was asleep and he’d been far overtaxed today. Woozi almost wondered where Wonwoo would have been if that weren’t the case.  Wonwoo had spent most of the afternoon worrying over him, anyway.  Woozi had gotten the impression Wonwoo feared they'd reached a watershed and that something had been opened in Mingyu he shouldn't have accessed.  He didn't know if that was true, but it was exactly the kind of curve ball the day seemed apt to throw them.  At least for now that fear was allayed.  All Mingyu had done was sleep and hold his skull together as if he feared the pain would crack it open.

He drifted on.  There was nothing unexpected when he found Hoshi sitting against the wall with the library door at his side.  His head rest on his shoulder, arms folded loosely over himself, and his legs stretched across the hallway, like he couldn’t be bothered to keep them out of the way. 

Woozi stepped halfway over him and crouched down so he was at eye level, then blew directly into his face.  Hoshi’s nose scrunched as he blinked his eyes open.  He did not seem alarmed by Woozi’s presence, lazily stretching out his arms.

“Is Jeonghan back yet?”

“No.  Not yet.”  Woozi didn’t suspect he would be coming back.  For how long he couldn’t say.

“Should I go look for him?”

Woozi pushed back so he was sitting against the opposite wall.  “Don’t think he wants to be found.”  Woozi couldn’t blame Jeonghan for wanting to disappear.

Hoshi nodded and then looked over his own shoulder to the library door beside him.  “It’s quiet.”

“Yep.”

“What do you think it’s up to in there?”

“Reading.”

Hoshi’s mouth quirked into a smile, but even he seemed tired out by the day’s events. 

“Do you think that we should do anything for him?”  Hoshi shared a generalized distress in his words. 

Before Woozi could answer a loud bang rattled the wall like something had collided violently against it.  The scuffling they heard afterward through the door was a pale assurance that the wolf was at its work again. 

Hoshi did not seem aware that he was still cringing when he looked over.  Woozi was busy listening, though.  There was a low, unnatural growl that seemed like it must be coming from right on the other side of the wall and suddenly there was a flurry of banging and scratching and chaos and above it all rose a chilling series of barks and angry snaps.

“I can take a shift if you want.”  Woozi imagined what it was like to hear everything going on through those walls.  He’d seen it happen once in the woods a long time ago, but even back then Jeonghan was there.  Without him, it felt different.

“That’s okay.  If anything happens he can’t hurt me.”

Woozi didn’t know if Hoshi was imagining a scenario where he had to go into the library or one where the wolf somehow got out.  The room was locked and there was hopefully no way it would be able to break through the walls.  Still, the nagging question of whether or not that was a possibility stuck to him.  He could hear the claws gouging at the wood over and over with what sounded like purpose.

“Are you going to stay here?” Woozi asked him, secretly hoping that he would say yes and lift that burden from his list.

Hoshi nodded and Woozi stood once more.  “Okay.  I’ll be back, though.  Find me if anything changes?”

“I hate to tell you, Woozi, but one thing has definitely already changed in there.”

It took him a moment longer than he’d like to admit to understand the joke, but he was so relieved to hear humor in the house again, that it dropped the tension in his shoulders.

“We’ve only got to make it five hours now until dawn.”

“But who’s counting?”

The camaraderie of knowing that he wasn’t alone in this was enough, but the thought of five hours might as well have been five days.  The night was far from over and he would be getting no rest until it was.  At the same moment, though, he realized the foolishness of thinking this night would end with the dawn.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey everyone. To those of you who have been waiting, thank you for your patience. I honestly had decided I couldn't write anymore. Anytime I thought about it or tried to come back and read something I'd written I got so distressed and upset and repulsed. Everyone gets in those moods where they hate their writing, but it was really paralyzing me again. The whole idea of doing half-told stories this time was that it would take the pressure of plot away. I could write whatever I was ready to write any time I was ready to write but even that wasn't enough.
> 
> I am notorious for getting into the writing of stories and abandoning them. I've gone so far as to abandon profiles and make new ones on the same site or jump sites altogether just to escape old stories I can't bear to look at anymore. It's not really the hatred of the writing that drives this, but the fear that other people have read and are reading writing that could be imperfect or terrible. I am that afraid of judgment that I invent it. 
> 
> There are some of you I have to definitely apologize to for worrying. I hope I'll have the ability soon to address all of your comments or messages. I am and always will be grateful for the role you play in my story-writing experience. 
> 
> Here's to overcoming fear and trying again. If I do disappear in the future, I need you to know I never want you to worry. This is my fight with anxiety/imposter syndrome but I am always safe and I hope you all are as well. 
> 
> Lots of love, --K.


	7. On the roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Careful readers see end notes

Before he even reached the top of the staircase, he was struck by how the humidity lifted.  Usually the hotter air was trapped on the second floor.  For that and other reasons, Woozi didn’t like being on the second floor in the middle of the night:  there was often a feeling of weightlessness—of being ungrounded—that set him on edge.  He didn’t have much of a choice tonight, though.  He'd left Joshua that afternoon with a lot to think about and a promise to return.  Now, he'd let the night slip into its witching hour without fulfilling that promise. 

He told himself his guilt was the cause of his foreboding, but the new development of an invasion of fresh air led him to check the rooms one by one, convinced someone had left a window open carelessly in the chaos of the day.  He mostly found shadows, but no open windows until he landed on Joshua’s room.  He could see the curtains swaying before he stepped inside.  They flipped around as if reaching for something to grab on to.  The window was wide open into the darkness.  And Joshua was nowhere to be found.

His eyes darted around the room a second time just to be sure.  There were no clues but the open window.  He stared, and the open window seemed to stare back.  

A vaporous sense of dread clung to him as he started to cross the room.  The distance between him and the window seemed to stretch as he approached. He moved a heartbeat at a time.  His brain began to generate headlines about a vanishing into the night:  a missing person’s case that couldn’t be solved—a miracle disappearance with no explanation but an open window into the void.  He preferred that reality to the alternative. 

He finally reached the window.  He had to grapple with the curtains when they twisted around him under the manipulation of the wind.  He ducked to see through the opening, almost afraid to look, and recoiled at a silhouette in the darkness.

He stumbled back and crossed his heart—the superstition old and automatic. Something was out there, hovering at the second-story window in the witching hour of the night.

The curtains blocked his view now.  He had to force himself forward again.  He held his breath to approach, knowing all too well the kinds of things that lurked at windows.  He positioned himself to the side and moved just enough to see through.  The silhouette hadn’t moved and his heart recoiled in his chest at the sight, but he forced himself to keep looking until the image puzzled itself out.  It was Joshua and he was standing on the back-porch roof.   It was as ordinary as anything.  His breath exhaled out of him all at once.

He could see now how Joshua would have been able to step through his window on to the roof without any trouble.  The relief satisfied both mysteries, knocking aside the unsettling aura of the late witching hour and calming his guilt.  Woozi knew he’d given Joshua a lot to think about.  Maybe the porch roof was how much space he needed to comprehend it.  He knew little of angels, but he knew Joshua held a power that burned so hot it was blue, though it seemed silly seeing him now, a reed of a silhouette against the vastness of the night.

He debated whether he should let Joshua be or try to call him back. 

Woozi didn’t like to get involved in things that weren’t his business, but he was glad he’d told Joshua what he knew.  Which, admittedly, wasn’t much, but keeping what they understood about Joshua from him hadn’t been fair.  Maybe at first it had made sense:  give him time to recover a sense of normalcy and adjust before they tried to explain something they didn’t fully understand.  But it had been far too many years now to claim the moral high ground. 

How hard could it be to tell him the truth?  Sure, maybe they didn't know how he was connected with angels:  either he was one, or descended of one, or possessed by one, but it didn't really matter which option was true.  Any of those options had to be better than crazy.  Of course, Joshua knew some of the voices were real, he knew he heard praying, but there was a good enough chance that all of them were real and they'd let him go on believing that they weren't-that he was hallucinating or imagining it.  What made their lies better than the lies of the place they'd found him in?

And then there were the times Joshua wasn't himself at all.  Woozi wasn't sure whether all of those times were supernatural in origin, but everyone had come to the conclusion separately that when Joshua lost time and acted strange or out of character that another version of him had taken over.  Today was the confirmation that there really was something else to Joshua--and that the something else was apparently a terrifying apocalypse creature with eyes like galaxies. 

There was more to it than that, he was sure, but it was all he knew.  And now it was what Joshua knew, too, though for years everyone, especially S. Coups and Jeonghan had tried to hide it.  He'd had enough experience with being lied to to have it all leave a bad taste in his mouth. 

By his estimation Joshua must have been standing on the roof for a while.  The room was almost as cool as the air leaking in through the window.  They were far enough away from the nearest neighbors that no one would notice.  Woozi was almost content to leave him with his thoughts, until he saw Joshua move a step toward the edge, his head tilted toward the stars.

His muscles jerked and he ducked out through the window before he'd had time to think.

“Hey!”

If Joshua heard him he ignored it, taking another step dangerously close to the edge like he'd forgotten it was there.

He jolted forward and in three strides was close enough to reach out and make a grab for Joshua's arm. 

He barely made contact, and Joshua turned with a power like an ocean wave:  his eyes dark blue.  

Woozi was knocked over by the force of his recoiling.  He hit the roof tiles hard.  His arm rose defensively.  The tiles of the roof were vibrating, clanking like bones.  He waited, unsure of what would happen until he felt the change in the air. He lowered the barrier of his arm, preparing for a repeat of the afternoon.

But the marble light in Joshua's eyes flickered.  He started to blink.  Recognizing the sign from that afternoon, Woozi jumped to his feet and grabbed hold of Joshua’s arms as his eyes slid back to normal.  Woozi managed to spin them closer to the window before Joshua's knees gave out, moving him away from the edge while his own voice sounded frantic: “How did you do that?”

Joshua blinked.  "I. . ."

“How did you stop it?”

“I didn’t!”

Neither of their voices sounded like their own, as if the hysteria of the moment had driven their souls out of their bodies and they were unable to control their pitch.

“You have to have done something.”

“I think I blacked out.”  Joshua was confused and disoriented and part of Woozi recognized that but a bigger part of him plowed on, seized by the importance of what he’d seen.

“Your eyes were dark blue and you were two seconds away from walking off the roof but you stopped it.  That’s important.  You need to remember how.”

“I don’t think I even made it to the edge this time.”

“Trust me, you—” His mouth closed as he processed what had been said.  _This time._ He tried to ignore the way the roof shingles were digging into his knees or the way his shoulder was throbbing again.  He’d been ignoring it for most of the night but now wasn’t the time to deal with it.  From this close he could feel Joshua’s eyes on him.

"You were right, Woozi, about what you told me.”

“Of course I was right,” he dismissed, struggling to stay level-headed like he needed to, “What did you mean when you said _this time_?”

Joshua’s eyes slid past Woozi toward the darkness at the edge of the roof.  “You know, I’ve always known there was something _different_ about me, but I thought. . . You were right about what you said, though:  I don’t think this is something that’s part of me,” he sounded so certain now and so open in his honesty that it almost masked the meaning of his words, “if it was part of me it would have let me do it.”

Woozi’s throat tightened and it was a while before he was able to push his words through.  “Joshua--Why were you on the roof?”

“I couldn't figure it out at first, but something that you said earlier reminded me:  I’ve never been able to do it before.”

He knew what Joshua was saying, but he wanted to believe he misunderstood.  “Never been able to do what?”

“Die.”  Joshua's whole aura was disarming, his face innocent of the shouted crime in his word.

“Jesus, Joshua. . .”

He blinked wide-eyed as if surprised by Woozi's reaction, “I wasn’t trying to. . . I just had to know if it was true.  I had to test it.”

“By trying to walk off the edge of the roof?  That was your experiment?  What if you’d been _wrong_?”

“I wasn’t, though, don’t you see?" his earnestness haunted the glow of his face, "I finally understand something about how this thing works:  it won’t let me die.  I can make it show up.” 

“God, Joshua, that’s—you don’t _know_ that.” 

“I do, though.  I remembered something today.  Randomly.  This afternoon while you all were arguing and I was on the staircase.”

“What did you remember?”

There was always something open about Joshua's face, but Woozi saw it close then.  There was a long pause.  “At St. Marks. . . at the—um,” Joshua’s words cut out like the breath had evaporated from his lungs.  Woozi could see his eyes flicking back and forth as if seeing images where there were none, his gaze stuck fast on the distance, caught into some memory. 

“Hey, no,” Woozi shook Joshua to get him back, almost angry in his demands: “You can’t do this now, Josh.  It’s only me left tonight—me and you and Hoshi.  You need to stay focused.”

Joshua blinked back to the present and locked onto Woozi again.  He seemed acutely aware, though Woozi couldn’t say how he knew, that the house was empty.  Maybe because Woozi was acutely aware of that, too. 

“Sorry, just, at St. Marks-at the asylum-I think he tried to make me lose control on purpose.”

Woozi let that sit heavily in his stomach.  “How?”

Joshua made an almost imperceptible shake of his head at the request.

“Why, then?”

“What if it’s what I really am, Woozi?  What if I’m a weapon?”

He wanted to say that was impossible.  That it wasn’t true.  But it would be doing a disservice to Joshua to dismiss what his gut was telling him.  “Maybe that’s what he wanted, Joshua, but whatever he wanted it’s not what you are.”

He was relieved to see that some part of Joshua believed him—wanted to believe him.  “That’s why I had to come out here,” Josh continued, “I had to find out if I can control it.  If I can make it happen or if I can stop it.  I mean there must be a way.  But I don’t know why it stopped this time. I don’t know why it didn’t this afternoon.  When it takes over I don’t remember.  And I wonder if what you said is true:  that sometimes it takes over in small ways when I’m not paying attention enough and that makes me wonder how much of me is even _me._ ”

Woozi adjusted his grip on Joshua’s arms and waited until he caught his breath.  The tumult of words had a dizzying effect on both of them.

He struggled to even begin, “Joshua—If you really want to figure things out, and you want help with that, I can try to help but you asked me to be honest with you, and I am doing that when I tell you trying to step off the roof is not the way to do this.  You can't think that's okay.”

“But, Woozi, I'm so sick of feeling like this all the time,” he choked up as he was talking but the conviction didn’t waver in his words.  “I’m the only person here who has zero clue what’s going on with me.  And I know none of you really know either but at least you remember what happened this morning, I didn’t even get _that._ Do you know how long I’ve just felt crazy?"

Woozi didn’t know what to say.  Joshua was right.  The whole thing was shit.  But he needn’t have worried about how to respond, because now that he’d started Joshua had a lot more to say.

"Sometimes I would think I was doing fine and then suddenly a big chunk of time would be gone and I could hear voices that weren't there and some of you even _talk_ to me the way some of the nurses would and I can’t help but think that yeah, I must be crazy, then.  Right?  That place is the first thing I remember and you can say I belong here and not there but maybe it’s not true because none of you are crazy.  Sure, you’re all different, but you’re not losing control."

“You're not crazy, Josh.  You experience some pretty crazy things.  But _you_ are not crazy.  And even if you were it wouldn't matter.” 

"Then how come they didn't tell me that?  All they had to do was tell me! You all got to know what was going on with me and I was the only one who didn't get to know!”

It hadn’t occurred to him why else Joshua would be alone on the porch roof.  But maybe it was because Joshua felt alone, even when the house was far from empty.  And he might not have noticed that he said "they," but Woozi did. The two people who should have been there for him weren't there tonight.  They two people who said they cared about him the most had lied to him.  And none of them had picked up the slack.  Joshua might have meant it when he said this was just an experiment, but it’s one he wouldn’t have gone through with if anyone had been there to tell him no.

He knew they had made their mistakes, but he found himself doing something he wouldn't have thought he'd do.  He defended them.  "Josh, I get that this is hard and you have every right to be mad.  Hell, of all the people in this house you have the biggest right to be pissed.  But if I know one thing, it's that Coups and Jeonghan would do anything for you.  If they didn't say anything they had a pretty damn good reason.  I'm sure of that."

"Well, I'm not."

Woozi would have liked to say Joshua was lying.  That he was angry and needed to be.  But Joshua didn't lie.  Almost as if he couldn't.  So he must have meant it.  Woozi figured he deserved to mean it right then, too.

"Can I at least convince you to come inside the house?"

Joshua opened his mouth but seemed to think better of it and nodded.  He stood first, and Woozi prepared himself to stand without aggravating his shoulder.  Joshua noticed his hesitation and reached out to help him up, Woozi tried to protest that Joshua was aiming for his injured shoulder, but by that time, he found that his shoulder didn't really hurt much at all anymore.  He let Joshua help him up and then the two of them went back through the window into the house.  The moment they were inside, Woozi turned to shut and lock the window behind them.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **For careful readers: tw: vague situational implications of suicide; overt references to walking off of roofs
> 
> A/N: I can't be coherent enough at this hour to express my adoration for you all. I will return tomorrow to fix this error. Lots of love-K


	8. Down the hall

No suggestion had been made to the effect that they continue down the stairs together, but Woozi could hear Joshua a few steps behind him and figured that it was a good enough idea.  They had lost their conversation in transition, thoughts wandering down corridors in opposite directions.  There were big things to worry about, and small things as well, but the sound of Joshua’s steps creaking on the stairs made Woozi think that the house was so used to sleepless nights by now that it was okay to confront those things in silence.

In the front of his mind he phrased and rephrased different ways of telling Joshua to grab something to eat—or to try to eat something—or that there was leftover chicken in the fridge.  All of it fell flat, though.  It was something he figured Jeonghan or S. Coups would want him to say, but not something he would comfortably say to the other himself.  They weren't that kind of close.  Plus, it felt wrong to show concern while in the center of his brain, he thumbed through possibilities for what could have been responsible on the roof for stopping the monster inside of him.  Though he hoped it would not come to anything, it might be necessary one day that he have the information filed away.

In the midst of the many questions that remained, he was interrupted by the invasive memory of the night he had returned to the woods and screamed into the trees at the faeries that had taken him.  It wasn’t so much the screaming he remembered, but how angry he’d been that they seemed to glow in the canopy like Christmas lights in the dark.  It could have been a happy memory under different circumstances.  If he'd even for a second been grateful that they raised him. Now he didn’t feel much of an emotion in it, just a vivid snapshot of that glowing in the trees and how unnaturally warm the breeze had been.

He imagined that was how Joshua would remember his night on the roof. 

The cloud of ideas blurred him from the world until he reached the library door and stopped, at first unsure as to why.

He turned to look at Joshua for clues. He was facing the door to the library with a frown-at least, the impression of one. He was the only person Woozi knew who could express an emotion so clearly without any apparent change to his expression.  Joshua didn’t say anything, but it seemed to Woozi like he might have been thinking that it no longer mattered how badly he’d damaged the room.  The sounds through the door were proof enough he wouldn't be the worst damage the room saw today.

Or maybe he couldn’t stand to hear the violence of it all:  the crashing and the unearthly howling and the rage.  There was a certain disconnect that had to be made about what the wolf was.  It would be impossible to bear witness to it otherwise.  You would eventually come to remember that it was someone you cared for entirely losing control.  There was something devastating in that.

Hoshi, he realized, was the reason he'd stopped.  He wasn't there.

Perplexed, but not exactly shocked that Hoshi was not where he had said he would be, Woozi ducked further down the hallway, heading toward the splash of shadow peeking around the corner which would lead him back by the downstairs bedrooms.  He gave no signal to Joshua and, in fact, he almost forgot the other had been tagging along until he heard the wooden floor squeak behind him. 

His instincts were correct as he turned the corner and saw Hoshi' silhouette in the dark.

He called, “Hey,” to get the imp's attention as he approached him from behind.  Hoshi struck out his arm to stop them and Woozi had no time to react before he walked into the sudden barrier, Hoshi's arm hitting him in the chest, and Joshua bumping into his back as they came to a messy halt.  But Hoshi didn't turn.  He was staring down the other end of the hallway, half crouched like he was stalking prey. Taking his cues from Hoshi’s pinpoint focus, Woozi lowered his voice and his posture, unsure as to what had Hoshi so alarmed and resisting the impulse to be annoyed. He looked past him down the hall and said at his ear, "What are you doing?"

Hoshi didn't answer at first, nor did he turn to acknowledge them.

Woozi squinted against the dark until his eyes adjusted.  It didn't take long, and there in the dark, his tall frame eating up much of the space in the hallway, was Mingyu.  At first it seemed that he was staring back at Hoshi, but his eye level was too high, aiming somewhere over their heads.  Woozi looked back expecting to find something there, but all he received was Joshua's confusion to match his own.

“He’s just been standing there,” Hoshi murmured, finally addressing their presence.

Mingyu looked like he had just gotten out of bed, his white tee-shirt and pajama pants disheveled.  A chunk of his hair had gone awry, sticking up like a wave.  Hoshi seemed more on edge than Woozi thought the moment warranted just yet.  He also would have preferred if they weren't all pressed so close together, but whatever spell had transfixed Hoshi had passed to Joshua as well and neither of them showed signs of moving.  He decided to humor Hoshi on this. 

“So what, he’s sleep walking?” he asked, trying to understand Hoshi’s tension which was on full display through the cat-like arching of his back.

Something tapped Woozi on the arm.  He responded to the call for attention with some annoyance but followed the subtle point of Joshua’s finger.  The annoyance melted at the sight of the knife clutched in Mingyu’s hand. He was holding the knife forgetfully at his side like a neglected idea, but it didn't lessen the effect of its presence.

“Why does he have that?” he asked, no longer having to force the lowering of his voice.

“I don’t know.” 

Hoshi had not once removed his eyes from Mingyu.  It was like he was trying not to blink.

Woozi flicked his eyes from the knife to Mingyu’s blank face and knew he was going to hit a sore spot.  His voice pitched even lower.

“Is this how he looked the night you and Wonwo found him at the lake?”

Hoshi bristled and finally broke focus to confront Woozi directly.  “No.  This isn't DK.  And that was an accident.”

Woozi nodded, but was not yet convinced.  Hoshi jostled his shoulder to get his attention back, and then he was dead serious and thoroughly compelling as he explained, "When Mingyu was drawn to the lake _nothing_ I did could stop him, but look at him, he's just standing there." 

Woozi did look, and Hoshi was right--conveniently, he might have added, because Hoshi would probably have defended DK either way--but that meant they had no idea what this really was.  Mingyu had never done this before. 

Woozi heard the floor squeak.

Joshua had moved away, his hand holding the corner of the wall.  His head was tilted like he was listening to something that disconnected him from the surroundings. A few words tilted out of Joshua's mouth in a jumble of sounds Woozi didn't recognize, but just as quickly Joshua caught himself back into clarity and answered unnervingly through an inhale: 

“Wake Jun up.”

“Why?” Woozi asked, not understanding the interruption. 

Hoshi hushed them, and Woozi threw a quick glance at Mingyu, but he hadn't moved, so he hazarded the movement anyway, hoping that if he moved closer, Joshua would lower his voice.

“Mingyu's sleep walking.”

Woozi almost asked what that had to do with Jun, but he thought of the incident in the kitchen, something that seemed minor in the scope of things.

 _The murder._ Jun had coerced those words from Mingyu that afternoon in the kitchen and he connected that to the knife in Mingyu’s hand.  A murder.  And Mingyu was out here now with a knife when he should have been sleeping. If Joshua was right, Mingyu was sleep walking, but somehow, in some way, he was walking in someone else’s dream- in Jun's memory of a murder- the memory Mingyu had caught that afternoon. 

He hoped it was as impossible as it sounded, but he knew what Mingyu was, and there'd been so much to think of today, the thought of the raw power Mingyu had tapped into in the library had become an afterthought.  If Mingyu's mind was still running like a live wire with the insulation stripped away they were in uncharted territory.  Anything was possible.

Okay,” the moment was infused with a new urgency as he imagined the new ways this could end. “if I turn invisible I think I can get around him."  Woozi took a slow step, testing the floorboards he knew so well.

Hoshi grabbed his arm. “I’ll do it.”  It was unclear whether he had figured out how this was connected to Jun, but Hoshi, for his part, actually waited until Woozi brought his feet back together, as if he feared making any sudden movements in Mingyu’s direction. "I can pop over.  Wait until I'm back?" The request sounded like a question, so Woozi nodded.

The popping sound of Hoshi’s disappearance left Woozi debating on what to do next.  Except for the knife, Mingyu was not much of an imposing figure.  Woozi had seen him trip over furniture and eat food off the floor enough times to allay most concern.  But this was not exactly the Mingyu who tripped over furniture.  It was possible Mingyu would stand there until he woke on his own, but if not, they needed the knife out of his hand.  The memory he was walking through ended with someone dead.

He zeroed in on the knife and spoke his thought out loud.  “I think I can get it.”

“What?”

He’d surprised himself, honestly, but he also found it ironic that Joshua would question the sanity of his ideas.

“I think I can get it,” he repeated with equal conviction.  He hadn’t taken his eyes off of the knife, but did so now to check the blankness of Mingyu’s eyes.  He didn’t seem aware of them.  Hoshi had done the right thing in being cautious by keeping his distance but now that there’d been time to assess things as they were, Woozi felt a thin shred of confidence that he could handle it.  There was a possibility that waking up Jun would make things worse.  Mingyu could panic in his confusion or worse, not be himself at all. 

Woozi turned to Joshua to make his point clear, “Don’t move.  If things get iffy you go.  The last thing we need is blue eyes, okay?” 

Joshua’s mouth was open in unarticulated protest, but Woozi turned back and pressed himself out of sight.  He’d turned visible again in their presence on multiple occasions but not often the other way around.  He indulged himself with a glance back at Joshua to see his eyes scrolling at what he saw as empty space.  Woozi didn’t feel the effect of being invisible, but Joshua’s alarmed search confirmed it.  Even knowing he couldn’t be seen, he took his first step cautiously, one foot in front of the other.  He knew which floorboards to avoid.

. . .

Hoshi tripped over Wonwoo when he appeared in the room, barely catching himself against the dresser.

Wonwoo huffed awake, his words garbled, “What is it?”  He swung his head around to get his bearings.  His bangs were pressed against his forehead, almost touching his eyes which were dark-rimmed and coated in exhaustion.  In the time it took Wonwoo to fully connect to consciousness, Hoshi had righted himself and put an absent hand on the top of his head to quiet him. 

Wonwoo stared zombie-like up at Hoshi but then followed his focus onto Jun.  Hoshi didn’t have to say anything for Wonwoo to develop a familiar pit in his stomach.  He brushed the hair out of his eyes.

Jun was sleeping.  There wasn’t much to process, except a hitch that stuttered the rise and fall of his chest.  It was a quiet sound, more a shudder than anything, but Wonwoo’s optimism caved.  Wonwoo scooted himself closer to the bed but Hoshi beat him to it.  Whatever action Wonwoo would have taken was superseded by Hoshi’s sudden weight dropping onto the mattress.

Jun sat bolt upright with a ragged gasp like a shout had been sucked back into his lungs.  Hoshi caught him but, with floundering motions, Jun shoved his arms in between them to create space.

“Scotland.”  Wonwoo threw the word out like a life-raft.

Hoshi stayed back on his heels, eyes round with surprise.

The pace of Jun’s breath was a gallop, his hand balled into the comforter, but he caught the life-raft.  “Paris,” came as Jun’s answer between breaths.

Wonwoo shook his head without letting his eyes leave Jun’s face.  He gathered Jun’s gaze and said, “It’s Scotland,” with as much assurity as he could muster.

Jun’s posture shrank and he was swimming in slow dawning embarrassment that he was attempting to cover up.  By then it was clear Jun recognized who they were, but he held fast to the distance he’d made between them. 

Jun dreamt in disjointed memories often enough, but it twisted like a knife in Wonwoo's gut to know it had probably been worse tonight because Jeonghan wasn’t home.  Wonwoo knew Jeonghan was in the habit of catching dreams and half-resented the guilt of that.  He would have preferred to be angry.

Jun had said Paris, so it was probably the murder again.  He could handle Paris.  They didn't need help for that.

Now, Jun leant back against the headboard like the reality of where they were was heavier than the uncertainty.  He ran his hands down his face.

Wonwoo resisted the impulse to do or say anything more and thankfully Hoshi did as well. 

The expression on Jun's face when he looked quickly at them had a smile so forced it read as anxiety.  "Guess I need better sleep habits." It was a deflection Wonwoo suspected was mostly for Hoshi's benefit.

Somewhere in the in between Hoshi’s face had set.  Though there was a feeling of anger in the narrowing of his eyes, it didn’t seem that the intention of the feeling was directed at Jun but through him.  Hoshi's next words were strangely an offer:  “I can do a lot of terrible things to people.”

Wonwoo didn’t pick up on the meaning of the words but Jun did, because he answered with a hint of affection. “Beat you to it.”  Jun's breathless humor was honest and reassuring. 

Hoshi’s mouth pinched a bit, and the small change cracked the darkness of the expression to show the disappointed fidelity underneath, like he’d have liked nothing more than to raise chaos against someone on Jun’s behalf. 

Hoshi probably understood that what Jun dreamt about was real. Hoshi was more perceptive and a better listener than he got credit for.  But there was no way Hoshi could have guessed something had been disturbing Jun’s dreams.  Wonwoo had stayed in the room for that exact purpose and hadn’t woken up to it. Jeonghan, maybe, could have known, or Joshua.  But Hoshi would have no way of sensing it.  Which meant somebody else had sent him.

“I assume someone’s waiting to hear back from you,” he ventured vaguely so he didn’t have to name names.

Hoshi balked alarmingly like he’d forgotten something important.  "Oh, crap!"

And he vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N I've killed two computers getting this chapter done. Long story, haha
> 
> Also, in case anyone is keeping track, I did bring the date for the Well at Brackenrig back by 20 years because I realized it was fit into the timeline at the wrong spot. Whoops!


	9. The Lights Flickered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Cautious readers see end notes*

It had become a strange, silent dance.  Every step that Mingyu slid forward, Joshua would creep back.  He kept a hand stretched out behind him to search for the wall, his focus on the vacant figure looming ever closer in the confines of the hall.  He was afraid to breathe too loudly, certain that Mingyu would become aware of him if he did.  The knife was still in Mingyu's hand.  As the light from around the corner started to slip over his shoulder, he caught the glint off the rivets in the handle. 

Into that balanced dance, Hoshi made his entrance.  He materialized an inch from Joshua’s face, seemed alarmed by his orientation, asked, “Did it work?” too loudly.

There was barely time to process that Mingyu was in motion.  At the same time as Joshua called, "Hoshi!" he threw his arm around the other’s neck and dragged him toward the ground.  The knife swung close enough to hear it zip overhead.  Mingyu's elbow collided into something that wasn’t the wall.  The dull impact drew a disembodied, "Ow!" into the air.  Woozi appeared out of nothingness, his hand over his mouth.  When he pulled his hand away he marked the red smear that had transferred to his fingers with offended interest.  There was blood on his teeth.

Mingyu turned on him.  There was nothing behind his eyes.

Hoshi saw it happening, but he couldn’t get to his feet fast enough. "Wait!"

The moment froze on an inhale.

Woozi lifted his gaze at Mingyu like he couldn’t process what he’d done.

The color drained from Mingyu’s face.  He stumbled back, and Woozi buckled, his knees giving way as the knife drew out of his stomach.  He slid down the wall, a hand pressed to his side.  The blood started to run over his fingers. 

Mingyu’s eyes jumped back and forth with confusion and horror.  He saw the knife in his hand and dropped it, flinging it away like it burned.  There was a scraping sound as the knife went spinning across the floor. 

“What the hell is going on out here?”  The knife had settled by Wonwoo’s feet as he and Jun stepped out into the hall, drawn by Woozi’s initial shout and the sudden silence.

Their appearance broke the paralysis that had frozen the scene. In the time it took for Hoshi to scramble over and press his hands on top of Woozi’s, Mingyu’s hands dug into his scalp.  His initial impression of overwhelmed disbelief crumpled into a flinch, accompanied by a high sound of pain.  Hoshi’s voice sounded over it, “Wonwoo, he’s bleeding a lot.”  His hands covered Woozi’s and the blood was running out from under their hands.  His gaze was reaching for Wonwoo to do something.

Struck dumb, Wonwoo's gaze dragged down to the blood-stained knife that rest near his foot.  Beside him, he felt Jun tense.

The foreboding sank in slowly as he lifted his eyes from the floor.  Jun had fixated on Woozi, his eyes pitch black, his lip curled away from his teeth.  It was too late to tell him to step back. His gaze bounced to the others to share in the premonition of what was about to happen.  They realized one by one.  All except Mingyu, whose face had disappeared into his knees as he shrunk to the floor.

The pause shattered in a chaotic leap.  Wonwoo grabbed Jun and swung him bodily back into the room.  He managed to slam the door shut after him and wedge his shoulder against it.  He called sharply, "Hoshi, what happened?"

Hoshi floundered to respond, "Mingyu couldn't help it.  It wasn't his fault."

Mingyu was so far gone into his head he didn't seem aware of them.  He was screaming a muffled barrage of pain into the fabric of his pant legs while he held his head together by the force of his arms as if it would crack open otherwise.

“It’s not bad."  Woozi announced to everyone and no one, since no one was listening.  He could barely concentrate with the cacophony of sounds and the flickering of the lights.  He felt fine.  Except there was a huge, aching desperate pain.  But it wasn’t his.  It didn't make sense that it would be.  There was too much noise:  between Mingyu’s moaning and Wonwoo’s shouted questions and Hoshi, who wasn't stringing much of anything together but his expression was loud.  The room or his head was swimming.  He turned his head away from Wonwoo and Hoshi calling their agitation across to one another.

Joshua was still crouched nearby.  His frame was taut and he was blinking almost as quickly as the light.

Woozi pulled his hand out from under Hoshi’s and reached in Joshua’s direction, wanting to tap on his arm to get his attention, but he was too far away so he gave up and let his hand sit on the floor.  "Joshua, I think I figured it out." his own voice sounded too slow, swirling in his brain like soft-serve ice cream. "It's adrenaline.  You:  the lights.  We're fine, though.  Right?  We’re all family here.”  Each word pulled on the cut on his lip where his tooth had gouged it.  He kept talking, though, knowing as the lights slowed in their flicker that he was helping.

He thought he heard Wonwoo swear.  In reaction to what, exactly, he didn't know.  Probably Joshua.  He hoped someone would pay attention to Mingyu soon. With all his yelling you would think his brain was melting.

Hoshi's hand was on his shoulder.  He was calling back to Wonwoo, too loudly, “No, he's not focusing.”

Woozi tried to interrupt, “It’s not like I’m dying.” He thought faintly that he should clean himself up.  Blood would stain the hardwood.

Wonwoo had already been making a list in his head:  he was going to need alder and yarrow and petroleum jelly and bandages.  He hadn't bothered mixing up salves in years.  There hadn't been need of it.  He'd have to use the yarrow for now in a slap-dash job, but it would be safer in Woozi's case than a bacterial antiseptic.  Actually, honey would be faster. "Hoshi, do we still have the market honey?"

Joshua rose suddenly to his feet, alarming everyone conscious enough to react.  The hall was plunged into a temporary blindness as the lights flickered out again and their eyes adjusted.  He stepped over the gathered storm of chaos and noise, his destination clear. 

Wonwoo put out an arm as he approached but didn't dare touch him, afraid to jar him in any way.  There had been a precarious moment within the flashing of the lights where it seemed he was going to lose himself again.

Joshua stepped around Wonwoo so he could get to the door. 

“You can’t go in there now," Wonwoo insisted, tightening his grip on the doorknob.  But Joshua didn't reach for the handle.  He just pressed himself against the remaining space at the door and called, “Jun, you couldn’t bring the bee into the house, remember?”

Joshua wasn't himself.  In a bid to buy himself time, Wonwoo called across to Hoshi, "Keep putting pressure on it, okay?"

Hoshi was dividing his attention between his care of Woozi and the apprehension which he cast in Joshua's direction.  Woozi mumbled something that had the word "fine" in it and Wonwoo caught Hoshi hush back, "You were supposed to wait."

Joshua was quiet now, but just as urgent, "Jun, I know you're on the other side of the door.  You had the bee on the back porch and then we were in the house and it was gone.”

"Joshua," Wonwoo interrupted in a bid to reason with him.  "I'm going to go help them now, okay?  Promise me you won't open this door." 

Joshua had pressed his ear to the wood, as if moving closer would make him able to hear an answer Jun wasn’t giving. And now he was mouthing something under his breath and breathing like he’d finished running a mile and was bringing himself down from the adrenaline of it.

" _Joshua,_  are you listening?"

Whatever he'd fixated on, Joshua was very clearly not hearing him.  Wonwoo was stuck to the door until he responded.  He couldn't risk it. Not with the smell of blood in the air and Jun as he was. 

He tempered his frustration and the helplessness of his position by shifting his focus to Mingyu.  Somewhere in the middle of the pained nonsense he was spouting, there seemed to be a mix of profanity and apologies.  Wonwoo tried not to think of the knife and what he must have done.  Tried not to think of the barriers that had shattered open in Mingyu's head, embedding like shards of glass.  He pushed in Mingyu’s direction with his foot in a bid to get his attention, “Mingyu, it’s going to pass, okay?  I need you to pull it together if you can.  I can talk you through this,” but his words were futile.  This would take spells and warding and potions and so much more to fix.

He made a desperate bid to call out to Jeonghan:  _If you are anywhere near home right now, we need you back here.”_

"There is injury.  There's injury now."  Joshua perseverated on the words, rolling them into different combinations that finally reminded Wonwoo to feel sorry for him.  He didn't want any of this.  Maybe he could step away after all.  Joshua was just repeating those words that sounded like nonsense until they clarified on something Wonwoo recognized, “ _Where there is injury, your pardon.”_

“That’s the prayer of St. Francis,” he spoke automatically, "it's just Jun praying." 

"I'm not crazy," Joshua said without segue or cue, "This is important."

"Wonwoo, what do you want me to do?"  Hoshi's question pulled at the threads that bound Wonwoo's patience.  He couldn't be having this conversation with Joshua now. Wonwoo tried to keep his sympathies in check but the words had to fight past his teeth, "We can't do anything until it stops bleeding, Hoshi."  Then he rounded on Joshua again, "How is a bee important right now?"

"Exactly," Joshua countered with startling clarity.  "I have all these gaps around important things. Woozi said adrenaline is what brings it out of me but if he's right then why can't I remember this one bee?"

It was curious, to be sure, but it wasn't going to help anything to have the answer.  "I don't know, Josh, but we can talk about it later."

"Jun keeps repeating that line though," Joshua countered gesturing to his own ear, "it's about injury, it's got to be important."

“St. Francis helped the animals,” Hoshi interjected.  He backed off with some caution when they turned to stare at him, then added, “I liked him,” in a way that suggested he might have meant personally.

Hoshi's comment came tantalizingly close to threading together the meaning to all of it, but the pieces resisted being joined together.

“Not a weapon,” Woozi said unexpectedly.  He was more focused than he had been before, and that focus was dead set on Joshua.

The words faded from the air until Joshua sprang back from the door and hit himself in the head as if he needed to shock the realization into order. He searched Wonwoo’s face.  When he saw nothing but confusion and anticipation he tried to explain, "Seungcheol was changing.  And those boys were missing.  And on the roof— _it wanted to stop me_.” his explanation had lost all clarity as his eyes widened. He shot back across the hall. 

Hoshi looked up uncertainly, almost protective in his positioning between Woozi and Joshua.

“Hoshi, I can help.”

Hoshi hesitated.  "How?"

"I don't know.  I just know that I can."

Woozi's was barely keeping his eyes open but he nodded his acceptance of whatever Joshua meant.  "Let him try."

Hoshi looked back at Wonwoo who seemed just as uncertain.  He'd stepped away from the door now and crouched to give a quick check of Mingyu but his focus was on them.  Joshua flung his gaze between them and insisted with as much belief as he ever had: “ _I can do this._ ”

With a long, ultimately regretful look at Wonwoo, Hoshi scooted over to give Joshua room.

"Wait a second," Wonwoo said, but he didn't make a move to stop them.  Woozi wanted to try it.

Joshua knelt down with fevered energy.  He stayed leaning over Woozi for a second and then turned to Hoshi.  "Hit me.”

Hoshi balked, and looked around to see if anyone else thought that was crazy.  “I’m not going to hit you.”

“I need to shock it out of me somehow, you have to hit me.”

Hoshi’s hesitation resurfaced as he realized what Joshua wanted to call up from inside of him:  the being that had shaken the house, that had thrown Woozi into a wall, that had been unstoppable except for Mingyu, who was in an unreachable bundle on the floor.

“Josh, I am not—”

They missed Woozi roll his eyes and kick out his leg, catching Joshua in the shin.  His face snapped on a delayed, “Ow."  Woozi himself twisted like the action had aggravated his wound enough for him to notice it with intensity for the first time.

But nothing happened.

Until suddenly it did.

Joshua’s eyes shut and when they opened again, they were dark, pupil-less marbles set into his face:  telescopes into the stars at the far end of the universe. 

Hoshi drew back and away in awe as the being that was Joshua moved in.  There was nothing but a burning of the eyes, and then a hand settled over the bleeding gash in Woozi’s side.

The impression of Joshua’s hand took on a faint glow and Woozi watched him until his expression twisted up in a new experience of pain that shot his mouth open and shifted his face into a grimace.

The hall seemed to flare with heat.  Woozi grit his teeth, hitting his head back against the wall as if it was a preferable distraction to the current pain.  Hoshi looked like he was going to move in but Woozi held up his hand.

The being that was Joshua was all blue eyes and silence.

Then Joshua tumbled off-balance.  He fell into Hoshi who instinctually caught him but only managed to soften his hitting the wall.

"What happened?" Wonwoo demanded.

Woozi’s hand went to his side explorationally.  Soon both of his hands were pawing at his shirt, fishing around until his eyes went round with awe.  "He fixed it."

He met eyes with Hoshi who became almost giddy with excitement.  He attacked Joshua with half-shouted praise, "You did it!  Josh, it worked!”

Initially, there was no evidence that Joshua was conscious.  He was slumped boneless against Hoshi and the wall.  When he did speak his eyes were closed.  “It worked?” The question was small and it almost seemed that Joshua didn't know what was supposed to have worked.  It almost seemed that Joshua didn't know what Hoshi was talking about, but it also seemed that on that question hinged everything that Joshua had wanted and hoped to hear for so many long years.

"Yes," Hoshi reassured, the energy pouring off of him, "you really did it.  Woozi's okay."

Joshua’s head barely seemed stable on his neck and Hoshi’s affectionate jostling of him was almost violent, but before anyone could be concerned or uncertain, Joshua smiled with what little energy he had left.  The infectious joy that radiated from him was barely tempered by the shaky exhaustion that kept him slumped back against Hoshi and the wall.

“It’s a neat party trick,” Woozi said with obvious appreciation and subtle joy under the humor.

Joshua laughed:  a breathy laugh of relief and disbelief that broke through the tension. He looked goofy and small with Hoshi’s arm thrown sloppily around him, the imp ruffling at his hair and trying not to get blood on him, but the levity that left Joshua's limbs with ragdoll strength set him aglow—the levity of so many years’ doubts lifted away.

“It worked?” he repeated.

“It’s good.” Woozi agreed in a voice that suggested he appreciated how powerful the words would be.

That tamed the hall's manic energy into something manageable.  Joshua was content to lay back smoothing out the rough edges of himself.  "It's good," he muttered almost to himself.  And the way he said it was as if he had never dared to believe it and still could just barely hold on to the feeling of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Cautious readers note: blood. 
> 
> A/N: I have had this chapter in the wing for ages just sitting here ready to post and instead of posting it I have come back, changed a sentence or two, and then waited (wash rinse repeat) for a month. I've finally decided this is just one of those chapters that will never feel finished. We're going to pick up right back where we left off in the hallway in the next chapter. Hopefully I don't get stuck on that one, too, haha.
> 
> Sidenote: Reference chapter for the bee incident (Loch Each): https://archiveofourown.org/works/12122409/chapters/29289141


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